#Crossroads

I stand outside; bare feet in my sprawling balcony,

A slight chill in the air; under the skies; so starry.

I see neon lights in the distance ever so clearly,

Like urban fireflies that buzz all night drearily.

A porcelain mug in my hand; my only companion; you see?

Its contents comfort me; sugarless Black Coffee.

A stray dog howls somewhere below me,

Vying for attention from a restless; sleepless city.

Solitude comes easily tonight; so surreptitiously,

Black velvet hues in the dark continue to engulf me.

I look into the distance and wonder; ponderously,

The thoughts in my head that I try to comprehend fully.

“Are we only slaves to our jobs and careers; perennially?”

“Does life hold more meaning than what we experience and see?”

Chasing dreams and passions; we often forget; we flee,

From the grave realities of life and the suffering; regularly.

In the continual pursuit of happiness we sprint lightly,

Tripping and falling; rising and dashing relentlessly.

There is more to life than just making; minting money.

Inflating bank balances and egos that in the long run seem funny.

What happened to living in the moment; cursorily?

What happened to appreciating what we have; presently?

Time flies by at the rate of knots; you see.

There’s more to every moment; unhinged and free.

There’s more to us and our lives; beyond the superficiality.

The mug in my hand looks back at me; empty.

The stray dog in the distance naps longingly; breathing heavily,

I see the first hint of a sunrise in the velvet vicinity,

As I table my pondering for another night of pensive activity.

The Pursuit of Happiness

What is it that we seek and chase?

So fervently the bar we raise…

Onwards we move in this dogged race,

To each their own; in a billion ways.

The pursuit of happiness; a relentless craze,

Moving pieces in life’s chess plays.

 

Days and weeks are blurs of time,

Penning the words to our futures’ rhyme.

So focused are we on tomorrow’s line,

That we forget about today; a nasty crime.

The pursuit of happiness has left us resigned…

…Tiptoeing over life’s many land mines.

 

A generation of posers and pretenders born,

As we try to keep up appearances; masks on.

Embracing materialism to often right our wrongs,

But all we want is some place to belong.

Perhaps the pursuit of happiness is just a ticking time bomb,

That bogs us down as time moves along.

 

The Machinations of Death

Death. An unassuming five letter word that spawns a multitude of thoughts, emotions and perspectives from every single living individual. A biological construct that is a foregone conclusion…an indubitable inevitability…a consequence of a steady march with time as an eternal companion. Death.

It is fascinatingly intriguing to note how various personalities accept, approach and react to this eventual reality that lies in store for all of us existential beings on this planet we call home. At one end of the spectrum, some shun the morbidity of it all in an endeavour to focus on the present; ferociously chasing their dreams, goals and passions. The Activists. The other end of the spectrum is home to those who have perhaps fallen prey to the fear of the inevitable and whose actions or lack there of are significantly dictated by how much time they may have left. The Tragics. Amidst these two “factions” there lies another proverbial bracket of individuals who have encountered a near-death experience sometime in their life. Such an experience may either cause them to don the gauntlet of an activist or descend into the depths of resignation as a tragic.

Simply put, our time on this planet is finite. How we put this limited resource to use to the best of our abilities is upto us. The manner in which one approaches life based on a firm foundation of sacrosanct credos and constructs, courage and conviction, compassion and comprehension…often determines the kind of legacy one leaves behind when one’s “time is up”. Along the way; one will encounter challenges, stumble, tumble, overcome, overcompensate…fail, succeed, laugh, cry and introspect. All this while, time continues to tick away; bringing with it the baggage of age, decay and eventually; death.

What is death after all? 

A paradigm of life in itself.